[LUM#22] “Natacha, age 13: Can I use ChatGPT to do my homework?”
Sunday evening at 9 p.m., Natacha realizes she has forgotten to write the paragraph
arguing how World War I transformed the global political and economic landscape. A long sleepless night lies ahead of her... unless she asks ChatGPT to help her with her homework! Would that be a good idea?
ChatGPT is a conversational agent and also the most popular form of generative artificial intelligence. ChatGPT has been trained using a huge database over several years with the aim of generating the most likely responses based on what it has learned.
Natacha can therefore ask it for help to save time. ChatGPT will suggest a plan to organize her ideas, and instead of rereading her notes and searching
on the internet, she will have access to information from a large database
. She can even ask it to correct her text. In short, ChatGPT can be
used as a research and writing assistant.
Even though ChatGPT has all the appearances of intelligence, it is a tool with limitations
that must be taken into account. The first problem relates to the training data
: it is produced by humans and therefore contains
multiple biases and stereotypes. Furthermore, ChatGPT will always give an answer:
it cannot say that it does not know. In this case, it will invent a response that is entirely
plausible, but completely false, which is known as hallucination.
This is why it is always necessary to verify that the answers given are true.
To use ChatGPT effectively, you need to follow a few simple rules: phrase your question clearly; compare the answers with other reliable sources; don't copy the text as is, but rephrase it in your own style.
In short, ChatGPT can be a valuable ally for Natacha, but she must
consider it as a support and not as a ready-made answer to her homework.
Keeping a critical mind throughout the process, analyzing the
information yourself, and constructing your own reasoning are essential for
producing quality work. ChatGPT is there to support us, but it is up to us
to remain in control of our learning and thinking.
Anita Messaoui – researcher at the Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Research in Didactics, Education, and Training (Lirdef).
An article in partnership with The Conversation website.
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